


Keep careful watch over my brothers' souls

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Brotherly Love, Coming Out, Denial, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, I swear, M/M, Mahal makes mistakes sometimes but he tries to correct them, Misgendering, Sooner or Later, Trans Character, all the denial in the world, everyone dies, impossible love, life in the afterlife
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Battle of the Five Armies separated families and lovers in a cruel way.<br/>The living and the dead deal with it, as well as they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. if the dark returns my brothers will die

**Author's Note:**

> Alcka: I have a angsty idea  
> Me: I also have a angsty idea  
> Alcka: here is another angsty idea  
> Me: let's combine them into a super angsty AU of death. Literally.

"We have to protect Ori," Dori said. "He is too young for this. He's strong, and he has learned a lot over the last few months, but not enough for this."

No one ever knew enough for this, Nori thought, looking at the dark wave of creatures at the horizon. Even Dwalin looked worried, and he'd gone to Azanulbizar...

"I'd die rather than to let anything happen to him," Nori promised.

Dori had nodded firmly, apparently satisfied with that. Much later, Nori would learn that their older brother had also asked Ori to keep an eye on Nori, claiming he was too reckless for his own good. 

By the time they realized that no one was watching over Dori, it was too late.

  
  


_There was a travelling dwarf of dubious morals. He had many names to give, all of them fake. People, to make things easier just called him the Third Brother, because of the way he always talked about his two siblings._

_"The eldest," he'd explain over a beer, "is a fusspot and a mother hen. Terrible cook, too. And he will nag at you over the smallest things, but you can't tell him to shut up,  because he is the strongest dwarf that ever was. Once, Dwalin son of Fundin made him angry... well, my brother kicked his arse, something fierce."_

_"Once in battle, he grabbed a live warg and threw it back at its pack. "_

_"Once he told king Thorin to shut it... and Thorin did."_

_"Once he killed spiders in Mirkwood... with his bare hands!"_

_No one believed the stories, not really. But soon, the first brother was as famous as the third, and everyone asked for his latest deeds. The Third Brother was always more than happy to tell the tales. His first brother, he would explain, was married to a great lord now, he had adopted children... just as he had always dreamed of. He didn't get into fights so often these days, he didn't have to... but sometimes a idiot came who didn't know why it was a bad idea to bother the first brother, and everyone was reminded of his great strength._

  
  


"Come with us!" Ori begged, as if he were offering a picnic outside. "It will be just like the old days! We will need someone of your talent! I'm trying to get people from the company, but most don't want to. I really had hoped to get Bofur at least... he was such a great companion the first time..."

"Bofur will never leave Erebor, he made a promise,” Nori replied. “And why would you want to go to Moria? Ori, don’t you know how many people have died there?”

“People have died for Erebor too,” the scribe replied softly, looking down, and he looked so young. “It was still worth it, wasn’t it? The mountain… it’s doing so well now! Look at all that we’ve done!”

Nori did look. They had a big house, not that he ever was there. They had a lot of money, and Ori was spending most of it to help the reconstruction, or give a start to people’s business, because he said he felt bad about all that useless gold. They were famous, heroes, but Nori’s only friend these days was Bofur, who wasn’t much fun to be around now. He didn’t know who Ori’s friends were. He didn’t know if he’d made new friends, after the battle. He’d never asked. He feared the answer.

“You’ve got everything you could want, kid,” Nori said, trying to not let it sound like a plea. “What more can you want?”

“I want to make a difference, No. Look, they will be going, with or without me… and it doesn’t take much to change the course of a battle. Remember the story of Azanulbizar, and how people’s heart rose again when they saw Thorin fight? It just takes one dwarf to change everything.”

“And you fancy yourself the next Thorin Oakenshield then?”

Ori laughed, and there was no joy in his voice.

“No. But you never know. I have to go, because if things turn bad and I didn’t go, I’d never forgive myself. I have to go. I have to be there, and to help, to do my best. I don’t really think I can change the course of things, but I have to try anyway.”

Nori frowned. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that.

“This is about Kili, isn’t it?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. It’s about him, and it’s about Dori, and it’s about the fact that I feel so useless here, anyway. You get to travel and do great things, but me… I’m trapped here, only now I’m given a chance to escape. Don’t ask me to stay, No. You can’t ask me to stay. I hate it here, and I know you hate it too, so it’s not fair if you ask me to stay.”

And that was true, of course. Beside, it wasn’t as if he really had any power to make Ori stay. Dori was the eldest, he was the only one who could forbid it… and his silence had a value of agreement.

He let Ori go.

When the boy stopped writing, Nori knew that it was only because he was too busy making Khazad Dum rise from its ashes.

  
  


_The Third Brother had a second brother too, younger than him. He talked about him the way a mother would talk of her child, as if he were the most perfect thing the world had known._

“ _He’s clever, the little one,” the Third Brother explained to whoever would listen. “Talented. The things he can do with words… well, his pretty face helps, too. Prettiest little thing you’ll ever see, looking all sweet and innocent, only he isn’t, not really, and when you combine that with his brain… Once, he got into an argument with an elf about the role of the dwarves in the alliance against Sauron, and in the elf admitted to being wrong.”_

“ _Once, he made king Dain pass a law that stated to limit the king’s power to declare war.”_

“ _Once, he got rid of two of lord Balin’s political enemies by making them both fall in love with him and fight in duel, and they killed each other.”_

“ _Once, he told king Thorin to shut up… and Thorin did.” (Didn’t you say that was your first brother who said that? someone would ask)(We all did, all three of us, at separate times, and he shut it every time, so do the same and listen to my story)_

_That was long ago, the Third Brother would then add. Nowadays, his second brother didn’t flirt quite so much, because he was married to a warrior with an ugly face but a kind smile and a brave heart, and it was disgusting how in love they were, the two of them. But sometimes, when the king needed it, the second brother lent him his words, or in case of a grave crisis, he still did flirt a little, because it was fun, and he liked it when his husband was a little jealous._

  
  


Gimli had returned from his travels so far away. Little Gimli, who used to play with Ori as a child. He wasn’t so little anymore, and Nori wondered when that had happened. Last he had checked, Gimli had still been smaller than Ori… and that was very small indeed, but the dwarf before him was his size if not taller, and he was a warrior, not a child.

A warrior holding out to him the remains of a heavy book.

“The lady Galadriel of Lothlorien kept it for me while I fought by the side of Legolas and king Aragorn,” Gimli explained, clearly embarrassed that Nori wouldn’t take the book from him. “I couldn’t risk having it destroyed… it was a good decision, I might have been forced to abandon it otherwise.”

Nori took a step back. Some of the pages were trying to escape the book. He knew the writing on them.

“He wrote until the end,” Gimli insisted proudly, as if there was any pride to be found in the remains of that book. “I had to bring it back to you… I thought he would have wanted his family to have it, and since you’re the only one still alive now…”

Nori snatched the book from the warrior’s hands, and threw it against the wall with a yell of rage.

He didn’t want that book.

It wasn’t Ori’s.

It couldn’t be Ori’s because Ori was still alive.

Ori was alive and married and happy somewhere, just like Dori.

Just because Nori hadn’t seen them in years didn’t mean that wasn’t the truth.

  
  


_There were three brothers. One who was stronger than an army, capable of lifting or breaking anything. One who could steal anything, anywhere, from anyone. One who was so handsome and clever, you couldn’t know him without loving him._

_They were the Three Brothers._

_They were a legend. The Third Brother had started the stories, but they survived him, and for centuries children were told the tale of the Three Brothers, even long after the kingdom for which they had given so much died._

_They were the Three Brothers._

_When the Third Brother stopped appearing in inns to tell his stories, people decided he had just gone to live his own happy ending at last._

_Because they were the Three Brothers._

_Things could only end well for them._

  
  


Death wasn’t quite what Nori had expected.

For one thing, he’d never thought that after dying, he’d wake up again. He didn’t lose time wondering if he was alive, though. He felt that he was dead, in the way that no part of his body hurt anymore, that his knees didn’t crack with each step.

The fact that he was inside a place that matched every description of the Hall of Ancestors that he’d ever heard was also a pretty big clue.

He’d never thought it’d be empty that way, though. But it didn’t matter. There was a door. He walked toward it, and opened it.

And that was where everyone was, at the heart of the world, more dwarves together than Nori had ever seen in all his life. Dwarves from the seven tribes laughing and working together, or doing nothing at all. There were dwarves everywhere, and Nori’s first thought was that he’d never manage to find his brothers in there, not when all the dwarves that had ever existed lived there together.

He had to try anyway. So he picked a direction at random, and started walking… but not for long, because suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, and a young dwarf with a wild gray mane called his name.

“It’s you, isn’t it? Well, what are you doing here? Didn’t know you’d died!”

“Maybe they told you and you didn’t hear, Oin,” Nori replied.

“I’m not deaf anymore, not as much… but you’re still as much of an ass. Do your brothers know you’re here?”

Nori shook his head. He didn’t think that they knew. He hoped that they didn’t know, because if they knew and hadn’t come to welcome him… he hadn’t meant to let them die, he hadn’t meant to survive them, not for so long…

“They’ll be with the royals again,” Oin said firmly, grabbing Nori’s elbow and dragging him away. “That’s where they always are these days. Say, can you give me news from my nephew? How is he doing these days, still with that elf of his? That’s a shame, it really is… and Thranduil’s son at that! Though I guess he’s not too bad a warrior… is Gimli happy by his side?”

Still in a daze, Nori started telling everything he could think of about Gimli, who was a great hero, friend of kings and elves, and Oin seemed please to hear it. For that he had made fun of Gloin for being a doting father, back in the days, he wasn’t much better when it came to his nephew. Nori didn’t mind. Talking about little Gimli gave him something to focus on, something that wasn’t his own death, or the slow crumbling of his wall of denial concerning his brothers’ fate.

Oin led him deep inside the mountain, and Nori followed, until they arrived to a great cave with glittering walls. A small river ran inside, and there was something peaceful about that sound of running water that had Nori relax a little. Death didn’t seem too awful.

Until he saw Dori.

Dori who looked younger than he had been last time Nori had seen him, but not that young, and was chatting with a dark haired dwarf who had to be Balin.

Nori froze where he was, and instinctively started looking for an exit, as he always did when confronted to something he couldn’t face. And he would have run, if someone hadn’t shouted his name, and strong arms hadn’t grabbed him from behind.

“Nori! It’s you!” Ori cried, sounding astonished. “It’s you, it’s you… Oh, but we didn’t think! We thought we’d have to wait at least another fifty years for you, or even more! Oh dear, you look so old! You’re even older than Dori!”

He did not turn to face his youngest brother. Nori had hoped… he had had to pretend for Dori, but for Ori he had _hoped_ , even after Gimli had brought back the book… because his brother could have escaped and left the book behind, he could have escaped, he could have gone somewhere safe, and if just never had the means to write…

Nori had hoped.

And that hope was now dead, just like Ori.

“Well, there you are!” Dori said, walking toward them with a smile. “What are you wearing? You look like a beggar!”

“Was a beggar,” Nori mumbled, refusing to look at his brother. “In disguise… for fun…”

Behind him, Ori snorted and buried his face against Nori’s back, hugging him tighter.

“You still have the same shitty sense of fun then. Mam’s going to be crazy if you still come to her in disguise… Oh! Someone has to warn her, and Pa!”

“Taking care of it!” Kili claimed, and there was something different to his voice… but Nori wasn’t in a state to pay attention to that, because he was trying hard to just breathe. He had to breathe. He didn’t know if the dead could faint, and he didn’t want to be the one to figure it out.

“Nori, are you okay?” Ori asked, finally catching up. “You’re so tense… You’re fine now, everything is fine… I don’t know how you died, but everything is fine now, we’re here, we’re…”

“But you shouldn’t be here!” Nori shouted, closing his eyes to fight tears. “You’re not dead, neither of you… you are alive, and you are happy… You are happy in Erebor, both of you, and you’re having a good life, and…”

Dori’s arms came around him, and Nori sobbed.

“Yes, we know about your stories,” his elder brother said, tenderly brushing his hand through Nori’s hair. “And we thank you for them, for keeping us alive long after our time… but it is over now. We are dead, all of us… and we are together again.”

Nori stopped fighting the tears and he sobbed loudly against Dori’s shoulder, burying himself against the warmth and the smell of home and _safe_.

He was dead, they all were. But he’d had a long life, and no one would ever forget the Three Brothers… and as Dori said, they were together again. It didn’t get much better than that.

“Just you wait until Fili hears you’re here,” Ori giggled behind him. “D’you know, all that time, he’d been wanting to snog you as much as you wanted to snog him?”

Nori smirked.

 _Now_ it didn’t get much better than that.


	2. Then we should all die together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kili dies.  
> She wished she hadn't, and learn to deal with it... and with a few other things.

She’d died yelling, Azog’s metal arm clawing into her throat, his spear tearing at her belly, the sound of her own voice covering her uncle’s anguished shouts. She hadn’t wanted to die that way, but at least she’d protected him a little longer, and that was why she’d come after all, she thought as she closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, there was someone above her whose face she’d never seen, so she did the only thing she could do, with the memories of pain and blood still so fresh, and she punched them in the face.

People laughed near her, and one of them was the dwarf she’d just hit.

“Well son, you’re just as strong as your mother,” he said, his voice both new and familiar. “And you’ve been with your uncle too long if that’s how you greet family.”

“Leave him alone Gili,” another one laughed, an old dwarf with a great white beard. “The boy doesn’t know you, and after what he’s just been through, I’d say he’s got good instincts!”

Kili frowned. the faces around her were familiar, all of them, and yet she felt sure she’d never seen any of these people before in her life.

“Who are you people?”

“We’re your family, son,” the dwarf she’d hit answered. “I am Gili, son of Gir, and your father.”

“My father’s dead, “ she pointed out.

“That I am, indeed,” he answered softly.

Kili’s frowned deepened.

Oh.

Considering her last memory of the battle, maybe this wasn’t a surprise.

“I am dead too, then.”

“You are, son,” Gili kindly answered. “And now, none may harm you again, because we are here, and we will protect you as we never could before.”

She nodded distractedly, and looked around, glad that she couldn’t see her brother, nor her uncle. She dared not ask after Ori. He was strong, stronger than he looked, but the battle had been so fierce… she didn’t want to know if he had died too.

She didn’t know which answer would hurt the less.

So she let her father hold her, and introduce her to the rest of her family, the grandparents and great-grandparents she’d never known. She tried to associate the name she’d always heard with the faces she was discovering. It made her mind go quiet, and help her push away the horrors of the battle, if only for a little while longer…

After what felt a few minutes but might have been hours for all she knew, Kili felt her father push her gently into her grandmother's arms. It felt strangely comforting, warm and safe... until she heard Fili's voice not far, crying out their uncle’s name. She broke into tears. So he had died too, her brother, her best friend, her future king whom she had sworn to protect, just as much as Thorin...

She had died, and her death had been in vain.

Pushing away the arms around her, Kili scrambled to her feet, and ran to her brother. She was glad when Gili didn’t try to stop her, and allowed her to fall to her knees next to Fili, pulling him roughly in her arms and holding him as tight as she could. She felt him sob, and his arms wrapped around her, squeezing her against him until she couldn’t breathe.

They were dead.

It was a small consolation that they were dead together. Kili wished her brother had lived, but she didn’t know what she would have done if she had been forced to survive him.

“Uncle’s hurt,” Fili whispered against her shoulder. “I tried to protect him, I really tried, but there were so many of them, and you had fallen, and… I can’t fight as well without you, I can’t, and…What if uncle _dies_?

“Then we will all welcome him and help him,” Gili said before his daughter could find any words of comfort. “But the battle is no concern yours now. ”

Kili only tightened her grip on her brother, suddenly furious at her father. Her uncle was still fighting in that battle, as well as her lover, and her friends. The happenings of the living world concerned her more than ever, and she wanted nothing more than to go back there, go back and fight with them, protect them, do what she had failed to do the first time around, because they needed her…

But then, she felt Fili crying in her arms, and she calmed down instantly. Fili wasn’t supposed to cry, not ever. He was strong and brave and afraid of nothing… and yet he was there, sobbing quietly, and it made Kili more terrified than she had been during the battle. She had known what to do then, what was expected of her, because she had prepared for it her entire life. No one had ever prepared her to being dead, and having her equally dead brother crying against her.

They stayed like that for a while, until Fili managed to calm down. Gili and their grandparents helped them back to their feet then, gently, as if they were fragile… and Kili supposed they were. She didn’t resist as they were taken away from the great empty hall, toward a large door.

The noise outside hit her hard. It was only people talking and chatting, but it reminded her of the battle, of the voices, the shouts, the groans of the wounded… She almost broke down into tears, but Fili took her hand. She focused on that with all her might, focused on the fact that at least they were together, and for a moment, she managed to forget about all the rest. She still stumbled a few times, her balance a little off. By the time they were lead inside a house, she was half leaning upon her brother, who didn’t seem to mind. They didn’t resist as they were pushed gently toward a great bathroom where a steaming pool was waiting for them. Kili distantly heard her father talk about how it would do them good, and how they would be given clean clothes after, but she didn’t really care.

“He’s not wrong you know,” Fili said once the door closed and they were alone. “I feel… I feel so dirty and bloody… I think I could scrub myself until my skin falls off, and I would still feel the blood…”

Kili flinched. She should have protected him. It had been her job to protect him, and Thorin. The king and his heir, while she was the spare, and she should have protected them, but she had failed, and her brother was dead by her fault, she had failed…

Suddenly, the bath looked very tempting. She didn’t usually like being naked, and even less where others might see her (even with Ori it hadn’t been easy… but he had been so sweet and patient, and now she was dead and he was alive, and she didn’t know how she would bear waiting for him, or what she would do if he took another lover) but just this time, she didn’t care. Caring would have taken more energy than she had. So she started undressing, getting rid of her armor layer after layer.

It wasn’t until she was in nothing but a long shirt that reached her knees that she noticed something was off.

“Fili?” she called with a shaking voice.

“I’m here. Come and join me, the water’s burning and it feels so good.”

“Fili, I’m a girl.”

Her brother made a pained noise behind her.

“Kili, please, not today,” he sobbed. “I understand… I get that you… just not today, please. I swear when you tell them I’ll stand by you, I swear, but not today, please, just not today. I can’t… I just can’t today, _please_.”

“No, I mean, I’m really a girl,” she explained awkwardly, turning to face him.

“I _know_ you’re really a girl, and I’ll break the face of anyone who says otherwise… but I can’t today, please, can I just… don’t you think dying is enough drama for one day?”

Kili bit her lip, and she didn’t have words to explain it, not in the state that she was, so she grabbed the hem of her shirt and lifted it up above her head. Fili yelped, and she quickly let the fabric fall back in place.

“ _Kili you’re a girl_!” her brother shouted. “With the right bits and… how did that even _happen_? I’ve seen you naked tons of time, I know you weren’t made like that before! What did you do?”

“I don’t _know_!” she cried. “I didn’t even realize until right now! What am I going to _do_?”

Fili jumped out of the water, wrapped a towel around his waist, and pulled her into a hug, the way he always did when she was scared.

And she certainly was scared, terrified even, so she started crying against his shoulder. It was too much to take in, in too little time. Fili caressed her hair tenderly, whispering soft promises that things would be fine, that he would help her like always, that at least now no one could ever doubt her… and it worked, at least a little. After a few minutes she managed to breathe more evenly, her tears didn’t fall as much, and she even managed to laugh, which earned her a questioning look from her brother.

“It’s just… I’ve wanted that all my life,” she explained with a lopsided grin. “And now I have it, I have a body that’s how it should be, and… my first reaction is to cry like it’s something awful.”

Fili sniggered, and kissed her brow. “You always were a bit of a drama queen.”

“Look who’s speaking.”

“Takes one to know one,” Fili admitted. “Can we still take our bath together, or do you want me to finish quickly and then leave you alone for it?”

She hesitated, but not for long.

“I’ve seen you naked before, it’s not so different for me. And unless you think my womanly charms will be too tempting for you…”

“Hardly. You _still_ don’t have breasts, you know.”

She slapped him on the shoulder, and he grinned.

“Well then, I don’t see why we can’t bathe together,” Kili decided. “Get back in there, I’ll join you.”

They stayed in the water longer than was necessary, just enjoying the heat of the water and the fact that at least, they were together. At one point Gili came in to bring clean clothes, but he was gone again too fast to notice anything about his daughter. The two siblings left the bath soon after that, talking about what they would do concerning the recent changes in Kili. In the end, they decided to keep silent about it until they weren’t so prone to breaking into tears at the smallest things. It would be just for a few days, and Kili was sure she could bear it a little longer, especially with the certainty that now, no one could deny the truth of what she was when she would reveal it.

They were almost feeling well again by the time they joined their family again, and they were welcomed by a great feast of their favourite foods, and some other things that they had never tasted yet. Kili’s heart clenched when she saw a bowl of chips at one end of the table, but she managed to push the thought away. Instead, she smiled at her father, thanking him for he clothes.

“Made by your grandmother,” Gili explained. “They were… not really supposed to be for you boys, but we couldn’t let you remain in…”

“We make clothes for the recently dead when we have time,” one of their great-grandmother explained. “Ours, and those whose kin still doesn’t want them, even in death. No one should have to keep wearing what they died in. Now come eat, children. Thrain and Erin went to… fetch someone. Eat while you can, children, it will do you good.”

Kili felt too disoriented by everything to really be hungry, and Fili and her still went to sit at the table and nibbled politely on a few things. They were just about to explain that they were rather tired when the door opened again, and Thrain and Erin came back. Kili shouted, and she felt her brother take her hand and hold it tight enough to hurt.

Thorin was with them.

Thorin was with them, dressed in the remains of a bloody armour, and he was looking at his sister’s children with wide eyes.

“Balin said you lived,” he whispered. “I asked him… he said you were well, and helping the wounded…”

Fili let out a pained noise, and Kili feared she might start crying again. The sibling didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at each other, but in a second they were on their feet again, running to their uncle to hug him. They heard his gasp, and felt his sobs, but they didn’t let go, holding him as tight as they could while he mumbled apologies to them, for getting them killed, for how he had lost his mind, for everything they had suffered by his fault, and Kili cried again, but she didn’t mind because they were _all_ crying.

It was terrible, knowing that they had died for nothing, that their line was broken after all… but she didn’t dare to imagine what it would have been like for any of them to survive, and be the only one to live.

 

Being dead wasn’t easy, but after a couple days, Kili got used to it. It wasn’t so bad. Or maybe it was just because most of her family had been dead for years anyway, and she was finally getting a chance to meet them. Her mother’s mother was a stern but beautiful dwarrodam, and her husband was just as severe, but they were still so kind, and doted on their grandchildren every chance they had. Thror, from whom Kili and her brother had heard so much, and not always in good, turned out to be a lot of fun. He was a musician, just like Fili, and the two of them got along just great. Kili saw sometimes that Thrain was a little envious of that easy friendship, and her uncle Frerin even more… she couldn’t do much for her grandfather, but distracting her uncle was a piece of cake.

And it also usually involved stealing cakes, as a matter of fact, though they always denied everything they were accused of. Frerin was terribly good at looking innocent… though it might just have been that he looked so young.

They all did, really. Gili explained to her once that dead dwarves tended to go back to the age when they felt they had been at their best. Thrain looked almost the way he had when he’d died, but without asking, Kili knew that Thror looked the way he had before he fell to gold sickness.

Thorin, she had a feeling, looked just as old as he had been in Laketown. She couldn’t have explained why she gave his face such a precise age, but she was certain of it, and Fili agreed.

Not that they saw their uncle much. While the two young ones had quickly gotten used to being dead, Thorin was carrying great guilt and he spent most of his time locked away, refusing to talk to anyone, or even look at them. He particularly avoided Fili and Kili’s presence. It wasn’t easy to get him to be there when Kili finally explained her situation to her family. Thorin was the first to break the heavy silence that followed her confused explanation about always having been a girl, really, only everything matched now.

“Why didn’t you ever speak of this before?” he asked, and it was the first time they heard his voice since their death.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand,” she admitted. “Mother knew, and she was very kind about it… but I think she was just humouring me sometimes. Beside, if you had known… would you have taken on your quest someone who claimed to be a woman?”

“No. And that might have saved your life.”

Kili shrugged. “Or I might have tripped in the stairs in Ered Luin, and died anyway. Beside, you would have had one less warrior, and… more of us might have died, supposing you ever reached Erebor. I do not say that I was essential to your quest, uncle… but there were few of us even like this. I… I would have told you, though. In Erebor. I had planned to tell everyone then.”

She was good at planning to tell, she thought bitterly. She had planned to tell Fili for years before she’d dared it, and then she’d waited so long again before telling Dis… And she had promised herself she would tell Ori while they were still in Laketown, because he deserved the truth, because it made her uncomfortable the way they were sometimes. Ori had thought her shy and not quite at ease yet with having a lover, so he had been patient and had tried to never push her, but had she lived she would have had to explain one day.

“Well, I suppose that’s going to be a problem,” Erin sighed with a frown. Kili tensed, and Fili, who was standing next to her, immediately grabbed her hand, but their grandmother granted them a rare smile. “Peace, children. I only meant that we are going to need dresses your size, dear. Or do you prefer trousers? Many girls around here do.”

“Trousers are better for running and fighting,” Kili answered hesitantly, years of self convincing not so easily broken. But her brother squeezed her hand lightly, and it gave her courage. “I’d love to have a dress or two, though. I’ve always wanted one… And I wouldn’t run around with it, I’d keep it nice and clean and I wouldn’t wear it at training, ever.”

Erin nodded with a kind frown, and that was it. From then on, they all accepted Kili for a girl.

There were a few mistakes here and there, but they were always corrected right away, and no one seemed to mind. Frerin made a terrible show of being protective of his niece, refusing to let anyone talk to her for fear they might seduce that “young and innocent little gem”, but he did the same with his great-aunt Idris, so Kili didn’t mind too much.

It still took her a while to dare going out in a dress, and even then, she only did it with Fili by her side. She was terrified that someone would yell at her and accuse her of being a fraud… but her brother’s presence comforted her terribly. There was nothing that they couldn’t fight when they were together.

Or so she thought, until they decided to head back home after that first walk outside in a dress, and they met Dori at their door.

“Well, and here are our princes then,” he welcomed them with a tone of voice that tried too hard to be cheerful, and Kili’s hand found her brother’s and gripped it tight. “I had come to say hello to you, see how you are, and…”

“Nori, is he alive?” Fili cut him. “Is he well?”

Dori sighed, and nodded with a sad smile. “Of course they are, and in perfect health as far as I know. The Ris don’t die so easily, be sure of that. Even I only recently… Well. I got a wound to the head, and wouldn’t wake up, and we all know how these things end, don’t we?”

“Sorry that you died,” Kili mumbled, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed that Ori wasn’t about to join her. She decided that she _had_ to be relieved, or else she would truly be a terrible sort of person. For a second though, Dori looked at her a strange way, and she wondered if he could guess what sort of dark wishes were stuck in her head.

“Kili, there is no delicate way to put this,” he started hesitantly, “but I cannot fail to notice that you are… well. You appear to be dressed as a woman, dear.”

“That’s because I am one.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad that you found the courage to let it be known,” Dori said, with a soft tap on her shoulder. “It cannot have been easy for you… though I imagine it is quite liberating, to be… here.”

“It… it is, yes.”

“Good for you. Well, I must be going… I have promised some biscuits to my father’s family, and it is going late. You should come have tea at home one of these days… both of you. After all, had things been different… well, we might have become family, don’t you think?”

Kili blushed and nodded, but it was at Fili that Dori looked, and it pained her. Her brother and Nori had kept pretending to flirt together during the quest, always insisting it was just a game and laughing loud after each declaration of affection… and she’d thought it really was just a game, until one night in Mirkwood had confessed he was only half jesting, and that he’d have been in earnest if only he’d had any way to know what Nori felt.

She was glad that her brother didn’t  notice Dori’s look. Fili had had enough doubts about that while he lived, she didn’t want him to start regretting the missed opportunities.

 

The years that passed in the land of the dead were quiet enough. Or maybe not quiet as such, because Frerin, Kili and Fili made a terrific gang, and they found themselves friends, boys and girls, who were all too ready to follow them in mad schemes. Gili kept claiming that they would drive him mad, and that he felt sorry for Dis, forced to deal with such children on her own… But Kili had gone to ask _his_ mother, and she’d learned he’d been even worse than them as a dwarfling, so she didn’t feel too guilty. Beside, she was having too much fun exploring the Halls with their little gang of dwarves who had died too young. Some of them had fallen during the First Age, and as Frerin said, there was nothing as great as someone with thousands of years of experience, and still the brain of an adolescent.

Not that Kili was always acting like a wild child. There was a lot to do. Her grandmother was trying to teach her how to dress and do her hair like a lady (with a limited success, admittedly). And Fili and her spent a lot of time in the forges, making weapon for what older dwarves called the “Great Fight”, which would be the last war on evil, and would unite all good people against the creatures of Melkor. Dwarves, she learned, would fight in that war, but their task was also to make weapons for all the other warriors, elves, men… even hobbit would be by their side, her grandmother told her, and also some orcs and goblins.

“They’re not all bad, or so the Maker says,” Erin explained with a disdainful little sniff, as if she doubted that Mahal knew what he was talking about. “There are bands of free orcs, who have renounced their old allegiance to darkness, and we make weapons for them too.”

It was strange, the first time Kili had to make arrows for orcs, and it brought back memories of the mountain that almost made her sick. She feared for a moment that others would think her weak, or look down upon her because she couldn’t forgive so easily… but when she told her father, he went to talk to the dwarf who gave them their instructions each day, and she never again had to work for orcs.

She wasn’t the only one to have troubles with memories of the battle. Fili often joined her at night, plagued by nightmares he never wanted to talk about. As for Thorin…

Thorin had improved, there was no denying it. After a couple months, he started leaving his room a little more easily, and he started talking again. Frerin also managed to convince him to work in the forge, and having something to do certainly did him good. But he still looked like a dwarf who wasn’t sleeping enough, and every time there was a death in Erebor, he would rush to see the newly deceased and ask for news of the mountain.

Kili, at first, thought that her uncle only worried about the kingdom he’d never had time to rule. She mentioned once to Fili that it was a little ridiculous, but her brother just shook his head.

“Bofur,” he said as if it explained everything.

“What about him?”

“Uncle and him… they had a thing going on.”

“Really? I never noticed! I’d never have thought Bofur could be discreet…”

She smirked at her own joke, but Fili shook his head again.

“They didn’t really have a thing, they… had a thing about having a thing one day?” he explained, waving his hands in a way that just confused his sister a little more. “I don’t know the whole thing, I just… heard mother talk to uncle once, and then I heard Bofur and him sometimes, and I watched a lot… You know, the way Nori always watched at people. He was teaching me, and… well, never mind that. My point is, I think uncle has known Bofur for a very long while, and I think he loved him madly, and Bofur loved him back, and they both knew it. But you know how uncle is. It would have been too easy if he could have, you know, allowed himself to be _happy_.”

“Couldn’t do that. Because of _responsibilities_ ,” Kili said, trying to imitate her uncle’s voice, but it didn’t make her laugh for once. She still often felt bad for herself, and the way she’d lost Ori after so little time together. And with the way Dori was, she was now sure that Nori had cared for Fili as much as the prince had cared for the thief, and she felt so sorry for them too, for never getting the time to try their chance. But there was something awful about Thorin knowing that he was in love, and loved in return, and never doing anything because Erebor, as usual, came before everything else.

Sometimes, Kili was almost glad that she had died. She wasn’t sure she could have ever really loved a kingdom that had taken so much from them all.

But she was maybe a little kinder after her uncle after that, and knowing what he too had lost in that battle was the last drop that allowed her to really forgive him for all that had happened in the mountain. She hadn’t even realized before then that she still held a grudge for all of that. But when that anger left, she found she had more patience for his sorrow, and she even started going with him sometimes, when he went to visit the new deads.

That was how they learned about Balin’s quest.

The dwarf who told them had died right before Balin’s army left the mountain. He should have gone with them, but he’d eaten something bad, and died from it.

“A shame,” he told them. “It would have been just as glorious as your quest, if you don’t mind my saying that. We would have claimed back the caves of Khazad Dum…Well, they still will, of course, but I won’t be part of it. A shame, a true shame… I’d have loved to follow lord Balin.”

“Is anyone else of my company going?” Thorin asked, pale as clay.

“Of course. There’s lord Oin of course, since he’s great friend with lord Balin… and that little lord, the one with the pretty face…”

“Ori?” Kili suggested, her voice almost a whimper.

“Yes, that’s the one!” the dwarf exclaimed. “He’s a great teller they say, and he’ll write down the entire story… the rest of them are going to be legends, and here I am, dead because I ate a bad egg.”

Kili almost ran away right there and then, feeling sick… but it would have been selfish to not ask one more question, one for Fili. As soon as the dwarf told her that Nori wasn’t part of the army though, she left. Her uncle could handle the rest of the conversation if he wanted, but she couldn’t. All she could do was run and run, as far away as she could.

Ori was going to Moria, and he would die, because everyone who went there died. There were orcs there, as many orcs as there had been in Mordor once, or so Dwalin used to tell her. And for those who survived the orcs, there was Durin’s Bane, the creature that was so foul and terrible, even elves feared it greatly, and dared not speak its name.

And that was were Ori was going, _her_ Ori.

He was going to die, and as much as she wanted, needed to see him again, this wasn’t the death she would have wanted for him. No one deserved to die at the hand of orcs.

He was going to die, and they would be together again, and part of her wanted that so badly. She wanted to see his smile again, to hear his laugh, to feel his hands on her, the way he always found ways to touch her, sometimes just holding her hand simply because they could. She wanted to talk with him again, and listen to how excited he got when he started talking about all stories or calligraphy. She wanted to be with him again after years of missing him, and she would have done anything for that.

But the only way to see him again was to wait for his death, and she knew she should not have wanted _that_. Only the worst dwarf ever, the most selfish person could have wished for the death of a lover… but she just couldn’t help it. She had missed him so much, and she didn’t care how awful she was, she just wanted Ori by her side, needed him.

But the guilt of that desire was still there, and so she ran and ran, until her legs hurt and her lungs burned, until she couldn’t take another step and just dropped to the floor.

She wanted to see Ori again, but she didn’t want him to die, not yet, not so young.

So she prayed to Mahal, but for what, she wasn’t sure.

 

In the end, she was gone for a few days. When she came back, no one said anything about her disappearance, nor about Ori. But Erin made her favourite meals for a couple days afterwards, and Frerin suggested great wild adventures, while Gili told her that he knew a few dwarves who wanted to learn archery, and would have been delighted to have her as a teacher. And she was grateful for it all, drowning herself in work and mischief and just about anything she could find to do, until she had no time to think about anything else. She was constantly exhausted, and often grumpy, which led to a few jokes about her being too much like Thorin…

Once, it would have upset her to be compared to her uncle, but now she understood better why he had been that way. She didn’t know why he had denied himself the company of Bofur, but she knew now how being overworked was the only way to bear separation, and she knew too that it hurt to see anyone else happy when you were not. Some days, she wanted to shout at Frerin and his young friends, just because they dared to laugh, and their laughter wasn’t Ori’s.

Fili was, as always, a great support through all of that, but he wasn’t the only one. When the news of Balin’s army started spreading, Dori came more and more often to visit.

“I thought you might understand,” he told Kili once, over a cup of tea and a strawberry cake. “Most people I know here have been dead for so long, or they died with their kin for those that fell to the dragon… they don’t understand what it’s like, to want someone to live, but still wish they were by your side. They tell me to be patient…”

“But it’s hard to be patient when you miss someone so much,” she whispered in answer. “Am I… am I horrible for wishing… He’s your brother, you must find me a monster…”

“He’s my brother, and I miss him too. And it is not as if you or I had asked him to follow Balin in his madness… We can hope for a miracle for them, and still be ready to welcome them when they arrive.”

“You think they might survive?”

Dori looked down at his cup of tea, and sighed. “I did not think we would survive your uncle’s quest, not with a dragon waiting for us, and yet most of us lived. Who knows, they might be lucky again.”

They weren’t.

At first, only a few dwarves here and there arrived from the battles fought in Moria, and all of them spoke of how brave king Balin was, and how things were going well. The orcs feared them, they claimed. They fled before the dwarves, and soon the kingdom would be as great as it had once been. Kili tried to be happy, and she worked harder than ever to distract herself from how much she missed her lover.

But then, the dwarves of Moria started dying faster. The orcs no longer feared them, they said.

Then Oin died, killed by a monster at the bottom of a lake.

And Balin wasn’t long after that, shot down by an orc. They were cousins and friends, so someone came to warn Thorin of that death. Kili’s first thought was for Dori, and she ran to warn him, certain that no one else would think of telling him… beside, if she stayed, or if she went to see Balin with her uncle, she might get news of Ori, and she wasn’t sure she couldn’t deal with it.

Dori was glad that she had come for him, and he thanked her, before following her to the house where Balin’s family lived. They walked in silence for a while, and Kili felt horrified that she was almost envious of Dori, whose wait was over at last.

“There’s something I have been meaning to ask for a while,” the other dwarf told her suddenly, “but I never found the occasion before. I feared it would be indelicate of me to ask… but I fear that with all that is happening…”

Kili frowned, and shrugged to encourage him. Dori sighed.

“When I first visited you here, you explained to me that you had always been a woman, even if… it wasn’t quite as obvious as with most women, and that if anything, your body had just decided to catch up with your mind.”

“That’s… one way of saying it, I suppose. It’s better than how I said it at least.”

“Hm… and did you ever tell Ori about… any of this? I know that the two of you were… closer than you ought to have been without a proper engagement between the two of you, so I have to wonder if the subject ever came in conversation?”

Taken aback by the question, Kili stopped walking, feeling her cheeks heat up. She hadn’t thought that Dori knew. She knew that Nori knew, because he knew everything, but Dori… sometimes, Ori and her had laughed at how clueless he was for thinking that they were still chaste and innocent, even with how much time they’d spent together in their room in Laketown…

Clearly, they had underestimated him.

“Oh, don’t make that face,” Dori chuckled. “I’ve been young too… and it’s not like I didn’t… share a bit of intense flirting with Balin in Laketown. I think we all… took our chance to relax and enjoy what we had there. All, except your brother and uncle, who are absolute idiots, of course.”

Kili laughed uncomfortably. “Yeah, it was… a pretty good time for everyone, I guess. And to… to answer you question… I was planning to… tell Ori in Erebor. But then, in Erebor, things got… not too good.”

She had grown so _possessive_ over him, and he had been demanding, but at the same time everyone had been strange at the time, and growing stranger the more they played with gold, until Thorin had almost killed Bilbo… the shock of it had helped a good part of the company snap back to normal. Kili had promised herself she’d tell Ori after the battle. She’d never had time.

“Then keep in mind that he might be a little surprised,” Dori warned her. “You have had time to get used to openly living as a girl, and I am sure no one around you even thinks much that we used to treat you like a boy. But as far as Ori was concerned, his lover was male… as had been all those he had taken before.”

“You think… he might no longer want me?”

Her stomach twisted. She’d never even considered the idea. She would have wanted Ori even if he had been a girl, or an elf, or even an orc, she was sure of it. Well, maybe not an orc… but it would have taken a lot more than what was hidden in his trousers to make her stop wanting him, and the idea that it might not be so for him was horrifying.

She had waited for him for so long, she didn’t know what she would do if they couldn’t be together.

Well, that wasn’t true, she knew what she would do: she would follow Frerin in his mad ideas, and she would work at the forge, and wait for the Great Fight. She was a dwarf, and dwarf endured anything, even a broken heart…

She jumped when she felt Dori’s hand on her shoulder, but didn’t resist when he pulled her into a hug.

“Don’t think about it anymore, my dear. I didn’t want to worry you, just to make sure you were aware that there would be a time of… adaptation. Now, let’s go greet Balin, hm?”

 

Ori died a week later, as did all the dwarves still left in Moria.

Dori sent an uncle of theirs to warn Kili, and once again she found herself running across the land of the dead, though this time Fili was by her side. They ran side by side and hand in hand, which wasn’t very practical, admittedly, but Kili just wouldn’t let go of her brother. She was so excited and terrified and impatient, and she needed him with her, more than ever.

Fili had to push her inside when they arrived at the Ris’ house, and she thought she would faint when she heard Ori’s voice, giving news of the world of the living.

She would have turned back and run away were it not for Fili’s hand in hers, especially when Ori stopped talking and looked her way. He was older now, and painfully thin where he had once been pleasantly round all over, but he was still Ori, her Ori, small and with the most beautiful of eyes, and before she could say anything, he had ran to her and pulled her in his arms to kiss her. And that felt just like before, as if it hadn’t been years… and their families were right there, everyone was watching them, but Kili didn’t care. She couldn’t care, not when Ori was there at last, not when his lips tasted the same as always…

“I’ve missed you so much,” Ori sighed. “I’ve mourned you so much, it was…”

“It’s okay, I’m here now,” Kili replied soothingly, kissing the corner of his mouth. “It’s all okay now. I’m just fine.”

He smiled, and kissed her again, without a mind for anyone around them. The other tolerated it at first, but after a while, the show must have become uncomfortable to watch, and Dori’s father laughed.

“Come on boy, let go of the princess now! You’ll have the rest of eternity for that!”

Ori laughed at first, then frowned, and turned toward his mother’s husband. “What do you mean the princess? Kee’s a boy.”

Kili tensed, and fought an instinct to pull away. It had been years since anyone had called her a boy, and even when she wore trousers, Erin had shown her how to braid her hair in a way that made it clear to all that she was a dwarrowdam, even if she wasn’t the most feminine of them all… it had been so long, but the words hurt the same as ever.

Taking his hand, she tried to pull him toward the door.

“Ori, can we… maybe talk in private?” she asked.

“Talk? Talk about what? Why is he calling you a girl?”

“The pantry is that way,” Dori suggested helpfully. “Just cross the kitchen…”

“I remember, yeah,” Kili replied, and she could have kissed him. The pantry wasn’t ideal, but it would be private enough. She dragged Ori that way, feeling almost guilty for how confused he looked.

“You are a boy,” Ori stated when she closed the pantry’s door behind them. “I know that. I’ve seen you naked enough to know that.”

“I’m… actually, I’m…I’ve always… been a girl even if… things… didn’t always match what was in my head. My body wasn’t right, but I knew… I knew it wasn’t right, and now… now everything’s right, and I don’t know why, but it is. I’m… entirely a girl now.”

She smiled shyly at him, trying to convey how wonderful it was that things were now the way they weren’t to be…

Ori didn’t smile back.

“You are a boy,” he insisted. “You… you fight like a boy, you talk and act like a boy, and… there’s never been anything about you that wasn’t manly! You’ve always… you can’t be a girl! It doesn’t make sense!”

“I couldn’t… let it be known,” Kili mumbled, and this wasn’t going at all the way she’d hoped, but Ori was just surprised, it didn’t mean anything. “I… had to be a good prince, I had to act as manly as I could, for my family’s sake… beside, girls can fight too. It… it doesn’t really change anything, I’m just… sometimes I wear dresses, and I… I don’t look quite the same anymore when I’m naked, but I’m still _me_ , you know?”

And she smiled again, or tried to. It was hard to smile with the way Ori was looking at her, as if she were an orc or some terrible creature. This wasn’t at all how she had hoped it would go. Ori was supposed to be sweet and understanding, the way he had always been, and he should have told her that none of it mattered. As much as she had been afraid to tell him the truth, she’d always been certain that her fears were unfounded, that Ori would be amazing as always…

“You were supposed to be a man,” he said instead. “I don’t… I don’t even like girls, I don’t… I can’t do that. I was in love with a boy, not some sort of… of magical _pretender_. I just can’t… you are a man. You always were a man, and you’ll always be a man, it’s just… it’s not natural that…” Ori sobbed, slumping against the wall. “I was so happy to be with you again, it’s the one comfort I had… I died for nothing, and I everyone I had convinced to come died too, and the only thing… the only good thing that could have come out of it was that I’d be with you again, and now… now I don’t even get that, because you had to go and get turned into a girl and… what’s left for me now?”

“We can still be together?” Kili mumbled, putting a hand on his shoulder and fighting an impulse to take him in her arms. “I love you, I’ve waited for you… why couldn’t we…”

“Go away,” Ori hissed. “I can’t deal with that now, so go away, leave me alone, and never come near me again. Because if I’d known that _this_ was waiting for me in the afterlife, you can be sure I’d have been a lot more careful about not dying.”

Kili nodded, too breathless to protest, and she left the pantry. Fili was chatting with Dori by the time she reached the main room, but he dropped everything when he saw her. She hesitated for a second to just fall in his arms and cry, but then decided against it and dragged Fili outside, toward their house. She _would_ cry, and she would do it in her brother’s arms, yes, but not in public, and not somewhere Ori might see it.

He just didn’t deserve it.

 

It was almost scary how easily she handled it, in the end.

Fili almost never left her alone, and when he wasn’t around, Frerin was, or Gili, or someone else. She wondered sometimes if she should be insulted that they had to watch over her that way, but in the end she was just grateful. She might have lost Ori, but she wasn’t alone.

And it didn’t really hurt, really. She remembered her pain waiting for him, and it seemed almost ridiculous now, because she just didn’t feel anything. She cried sometimes at night, and Fili tried to comfort her, but during the days she didn’t feel anything. She didn’t care that Ori no longer loved her, and she didn’t care how funny Frerin’s latest joke was, she didn’t care if her food was good or not, and she didn’t care how she dressed in the mornings. She just got up every day, did what she had to do in the forge until her arms hurt so much they felt numb, which was all she wanted these days.

She had busy days. It was all she needed.

She didn’t need Ori. Or at least, she didn’t need this Ori who didn’t want her. She needed _her_ Ori, the one who had been patient and kind, the one who had been sweet and shy, the one who had blushed so hard when he had first kissed her, who had held her hand before the battle…

But that Ori was gone, and she didn’t care, because she didn’t care about anything nowadays.

Or at least she thought she didn’t care, until the day Ori came at the forge, and Kili felt as if her heart had been stabbed. Maybe there was still some emotions left in her after all. Fili was the one watching over her that day, and he frowned when he saw Ori. It would have been easy to let him drive the scribe away, but Kili felt curious, and after days of not feeling anything, it was a progress. So she quickly signed to him that she could deal with this, and Fili remained a little distance away, watching intently.

“Hi,” Ori said hesitantly when he was before her. “I, er… Dori said I might find you here.”

“What do you want? I thought you never wanted to see me again.”

Ori winced, and took a deep breath before holding out a small box toward her.

“Present for you,” he explained when she didn’t take it. “As… as an apology. I mean, I’m going to properly apologize too of course!” he mumbled quickly. “But I also wanted to… to give you this, because I thought you might like it.”

Blushing and stammering like that, he was almost like the Ori she used to know… so she took the bow warily and opened it. There was a beautiful set of silver hair beads inside, with carvings that were so excessively girly that she might have laughed if they had come from anyone else.

“Thank you, they’re beautiful,” Kili said. “I… I really appreciate it.”

“I’m glad. And I’m… Kee, I’m so sorry, for… for the horrible things I said the other day. It… It was too much, and I felt so awful about, about everything else and… and I shouldn’t have treated you like that, I shouldn’t have said what I said, and… I’m so sorry if I hurt you, and I promise to never again… I was just so tired of everything, but I would never say anything to hurt you normally, you know that, right?”

“I know. But who cares? You said it yourself, you don’t like girls, so what’s the point in…”

“I don’t like girls but I love you!” Ori explained hurriedly, blushing hard when a few heads turned their way. “I… I mean it. It’s a little weird, and I… I can’t promise that I’ll still manage to get… turned on or anything, but… I love you Kili, and even if we never manage to make love, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you. If… if you still want me? If you don’t, just say so, and I’ll never bother you again, but if there’s the slightest chance that you might forgive me, then…”

He never finished his sentence, because Kili crossed what little distance was between them to kiss him soundly. It took Ori a few seconds to catch up before his fingers tangled his her hair, while her arms found again their favourite place around his waist. She pulled him closer, until they were pressed against each other entirely, and it felt so right that Kili might have cried.

Things weren’t perfect, and there would be a lot to figure out between them…

But as Ori had said, it didn’t matter as long as they were together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be shorter than this  
> but it got out of hand  
> as things do every time I write about Ori and Kili orz


End file.
